Tag: los angeles

These bikes came up in my Google Reader today, via Design Sponge. Usually I’m not one for cruisers but these bikes are too irresistable to well… resist! They remind me of bikes used as transportation in old European cities, the kind with cobblestone streets that you can ride down with bike baskets filled with Italian food or French fromage. The kind of streets that are wide enough for about one and a half cars. Where said cars park a little on the street and a lot on the sidewalk. The kind of streets where tiny old ladies walk around carrying baskets of bagguettes or flowers with lace scarves covering their curly grey hair.

I then started thinking about my own city in this way, Los Angeles. I’m pretty sure it would take nothing short of a miracle for Los Angeles to become European Cityesque, but what if it did? What would that look like? What if Los Angeles: VAST AND WIDE FRONTIER OF THE WEST was more like Los Angeles: the city of cities?

I wonder if we could ever learn to put the cars away, take the bikes out and use them as our main mode of transport? The less we have to carry around the better. In my mind there are two main parts of LA, The East Side and The West Side. The East side consists of Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Echo Park, and Hollywood. The West Side is Venice, Santa Monica and Culver City. Imagine each of these neighborhoods or groups of neighborhoods operating as self sufficient towns. They each have their own entertainment, their own restaurants and markets, they have their ownThen connect east side and west side with trains.

Would streets be more or less crowded? People would probably be happier. Communities would be more tight knit as you would see members of your community every day out on the street. I wonder what this would do for crime and racial segregation. I’m sure a lot of Americans would see this as a step backward. They would never want to get rid of their cars. I wonder if there is a particular neighborhood that would be willing to carry out this kind of experiment.

Saw Broken Social Scene present Kevin Drew’s Spirit If… last night. Which really means I saw Broken Social Scene play last night. I would say half the set was Spirit If and half was BSS stuff. Even though only about half the members of BSS were present, with members of other bands filling in for some people, it was still fucking amazing. You think Broken Social Scene is good recorded? It’s nothing like when they played last night. Well I mean, it’s about 70% as good as last night. Holy hell, they sounded BEAUtiful. They had this ethereal quality to them throughout and then the BSS songs just fucking rocked. Not to mention the theater was spectacular.

I’m going to upload more when I get home. I also have some video of Emily Haines singing Anthems for a 17-year-old girl with them. Not sure if that will upload though because it’s about two or three minutes and the file is probably too big.

Anyway, it would have been great if I didn’t get a headache in the middle of it and then continue to shake my head around dancing. Kevin Drew’s singing piercing into my skull didn’t help the pain. It was well worth it though.

Being home in bed right now makes me feel the same dead end, going nowhere, boring life nostalgia that made me leave this place. I don’t know if it’s because I’m listening to depressing music or what, but I feel it and it’s scaring me.

My dad was talking about selling my car. I think he very well should. I mean it’s just sitting around depreciating when it could be sold and the money could be sitting around earning intrest.

The back of my throat is still a bed of infection, which must make a certain someone really happy since he gets to kiss me while I’m here. Should I be concerned that it’s been like this for a week and is not getting better? Am I going to die?

Classes are finally over. Christmas time is here. Soon it will be a whole new year, and I don’t know if it means starting over but I know it’s a jumping off point (is that the term?). I could be smarter. I could try to be less analytical and emotional about my personal life. I could learn new things. Let’s see what happens.

All I do know for sure is that I have a limited number of days here at home to be with my loved ones and friends. To enjoy LA and everything it has to offer. To abuse my Disneyland Annual Pass to the fullest extent (hee hee) and to pack up my life into boxes. I know I’ll still have a place here if I need or want it but I think I should learn to be on my own. I think minimizing my material possessions will be good for my soul.

I haven’t really had much to close with for the past month of journal entries, I still don’t right now but I’ll just say happy holidays and be safe on new years.

I am the Alchemitz

a design lover
an environmentalist
in love with food
&
looking for happiness